New York

I'm taking you out for cannoli. It is not, perhaps, my most subtle gesture, but last night you said you had never been to Ferrara's, and I want to introduce you to my Little Italy. It's that part of the summer when the air outside revolving doors almost shimmers, when the humidity is becoming a presence but hasn't reached its unbearable, choking August zenith. We are about to leave a deliciously air-conditioned place – the Met, of course – and probably in good time, too. Our Billy Crystal impressions ("Would you like to partake of some pecan pie?") can't have gone over well with the pack of religious summer-school aunties. Of course, the comment one of us made that they could shoot guilt out of their pores might have been the last straw. At any rate, we have just stepped into the city-haze sunlight, and without needing any rehearsal, say

"Cab."

The heat is too syrupy, and the walk is too long, even if we take the better subways. You volunteer that two blocks down, we'll be able to get a cab without fighting the tourist-packed line in front of the museum, so we begin strolling slowly toward the corner.

I am wearing a skirt – it's nice to be without jeans or other work pants on my day off, and even in the heat it feels sweet to have air on my thighs. It has a short zipper that is supposed to rest on my side, but between our wanderings around the Met and our slow walk now, it has settled at the small of my back and begun to work itself open. You fall behind me when we stop to look at prints of kitschy photos, and it's only when I hear your soft growl and "Yes..." that I realize what's happening. I step forward to look at a print – perhaps the only unique one, in the mash of Empire State and Brooklyn Bridge shots – and lean against the table so that my ass is pushed out toward you. My hands are planted on the table on either side of my hips, and I can feel you move behind me a moment before your fingers brush my wrists. You lean against my back and say,

"Let's find a cab."

Before you can step away from me, I lean back into you and pull your hands up around my waist, then up under my breasts.

"Let's."

It's like magic, watching your hands in the air as you flag down a cab, and lovely in an old-movie way when you open the door for me and gesture for me to climb in ahead of you. If I didn't know you were waiting for me to make the next move, it would be only charming – but this is charming and hot.

I brace my hands against the top and side of the doorjamb and arch my ass toward you, just a breath of time, to let you see my skirt move against my curves. As I climb into the cab, I reach behind myself with one hand and gently, slightly, tug the zipper down an inch, so that a small triangle of my lower back – the mirror image of my clit, you could say – is framed by the black cloth. As you climb in after me, your mouth forms the tight, gleeful grin that means you want to play this game. I tell the cabby the address – he promptly starts muttering into his cell phone, no doubt asking his dispatcher for directions and traffic tips, and we begin rolling down the avenue.

You've set yourself up comfortably in the corner, wedged a little against the door, so that you are almost facing me. Once the driver has completely disengaged from the reality behind his safety-plastic window, I pull my leg up onto the bench seat, plant my heel on the middle seat, and ask you,

"A taste, or a look?"

"Do I have to choose?"

"The order in which you'd like them, at least – or perhaps you'd like to help?"

And you say – not entirely a command, even though the syntax makes it one – "Come here."

Shrugging away from the hot seat, I slide over to you, press against you, one leg over your lap and my waist curving against your arm, which even in the heat is curled around me.

"I want to feel you s-"

"Squeeze, yes – and quiver?" I say.

"Yes."

And the cabby taps the window – some rattling about bad traffic, construction, maybe a demonstration, or just the lunch rush getting in the way – we nod, yes, fine, just keep driving, and your hand has cuddled its way beneath my skirt. You press warm, soft, determined fingers against my ass and thighs and can feel the wetness of my cunt before you reach my pussy.

"Please – inside me –"

And you slide your just your fingertips into my cunt, and my breath turns into a choked sigh; my neck arches, and the back of my head makes a dent in the high back of the seat. Your mouth finds a place on my neck, and your fingers curl deeper, tickling my G-spot – yes –

We are below Houston, faster than we expected to be there, and rolling steadily along Lafayette with your hand stroking and fucking my cunt and our mouths tangled together. The cabby has given up asking for advice, and is aiming for the middle of Little Italy. Lafayette, with all its scaffolding and muck at Canal Street, becomes a death-trap for knowledgeable cabbies, and turns the 18-an-hour perfect midday limit into a joke. Our cell-phone happy driver leans on the break, but isn't skilled or smart enough to do it half a block back. The tires are quiet, but the jolt just above Howard Street is enough to thrust your fingers up into my cunt and press your thumb against my clit –

And I've come in your hand, in the middle of New York, when the summer heat is as hot as my internal body temperature.

Six blocks later – one south and five-ish east – we are eating cannoli, and I take your hand,

"Let's try this – a preview – may I?"

"Okay," you're skeptical, but the cannoli is delicious, as promised, and the only part of the dessert left are the chocolate shavings and some cream cheese. I run your finger over the cheese, and gently direct your fingertip to pick up the chocolate. You know the next part; your hand is in my mouth, and the mirrored wall we are sitting by turns it into a performance for the restaurant. There is only one person who notices, who we both notice: a baker, definitely one of the newbies, standing at the counter laying slices of fruit out on a tart. She has pulled her hair into a braid, which hangs down her back and stops at the top of her ass, and the moment she sees that I am – that we are – watching her watch us, she blushes pink and shakily lays out another strawberry.

From C, for DB.